The Translation Market In The People's Republic Of China

摘要

It was not until 1978, the year of reform and political opening up, that real market-oriented translation appeared in the People's Republic of China (PRC). By market-oriented translation, I mean a kind of translation service to which everyone can get access. Before 1978, the door of China was relatively closed, only open to socialist and third-world countries. International cultural, economic and technical exchanges were not frequent. As a result, there was little need of translation services. The basic pattern of the translation market before 1978 was self-sufficient in the sense that the government departments and state-owned enterprises had their own full-time salaried translators whose services were provided only for their own institutions. As for the freelance translators, they were actually part-timers and always affiliated with a certain governmental organization doing civil service work; their number was quite limited. In a word, the market at that time was not totally open.